


if you’re lonely

by derekmaliknurse



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derekmaliknurse/pseuds/derekmaliknurse
Summary: A prince's meditations on a fool, and the other way around.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 182





	if you’re lonely

**Author's Note:**

> zukka rights 😔  
> they would NOT leave me alone so this now exists. title is from wake me by bleachers and summary is a reference to uncle iroh's iconic words in legend of the fire nation.

_(fire nation, winter)_

Fire Lords aren’t meant to wait for their guests outside, but as soon as his advisors tell him a messenger has spotted a fleet of ships arriving, Zuko is slipping off his throne and throwing open the gilded doors while everyone else except for Toph is still looking around with bewilderment.

He doesn’t have long to wait: the ships have landed, and a hesitant crowd of ambassadors from the Northern and Southern Water Tribes are all huddled up together on the dock. Except for one figure standing away from them, up on his tip-toes and craning his neck even though as far as Zuko can tell he’s put on one last growth spurt. Wearing blue with his sleeves rolled up, looking around with an ease that the rest of his companions do not share. Hair shaved at the sides, tied up in a wolf-tail.

Zuko picks up his pace, heart hammering against his chest while his guards arrive behind him, panting and out of breath.

Sokka hasn’t changed much in the year that Zuko hasn’t seen him, except for his lean muscle and broader shoulders, Suki’s green ribbon tied around his wrist. Jaw sharper, head held higher, eyes softer.

He lets out a loud whoop when he spots Zuko, and starts running.

Zuko has not expected this, and he expects Sokka throwing his arms around him in a hug as soon as they’re close, even less.

He has not expected this, but he hugs him back, hiding his smile in the crook of Sokka’s (much broader, when did this happen, why did this happen) shoulder.

“What’s up, you jerk,” Sokka says, laughter in his voice.

He can feel his guards tensing behind his shoulder, their confusion and uncertain muttering. He cannot bring himself to care much.

“Oh, _thanks_ ,” Toph remarks loudly from behind him, “I really feel appreciated – ”

Sokka laughs wildly into Zuko’s chest, and lets go of him to hug Toph and spin her around, saying, “You know I love you, Toph.”

The rest of the Water Tribe warriors reach them, looking baffled. Zuko can feel himself beaming, a stupid, ridiculous smile that his father and Azula would have mocked loudly. He doesn’t care.

A year of dismantling laws, taking back colonies, land reparations, arguing with his generals, and assasination attempts, and he hasn’t felt like he could breathe until now.

Mai had helped, a solid presence by his side. So had Toph’s arrival, after she’d gone to see her parents for the last time and travelled around the Earth Kingdom for a few days. Zuko had told Toph she didn’t need to stay for his sake.

She said she thought she deserved to rest a bit. She said, “I think you need someone to take care of you.”

“I don’t,” Zuko had said, dark circles under his eyes because he hadn’t been sleeping, _couldn’t_ sleep, there was too much to do, too much to atone for.

“I think I need someone to take care of me, too,” Toph admitted, and this honest admission made Zuko scrub at his eyes furiously and give her one of the finest rooms in the palace. But mostly they ended up sleeping in the same room, anyway.

They’d all stayed at first, for his sake, he knew, while he recovered from his last Agni Kai and slept on, feverish: the five of them and Uncle meeting with councils and guarding his room. They’d left after his coronation; Sokka to the South Pole, Katara with him for a while before she joined Aang with Appa and Momo to restore harmony across the world, Suki back to Kyoshi Island with Ty Lee joining her, Toph to her parents. Uncle had stayed for longer, visiting every few weeks even after he’d gone back to Ba Sing Se. Mai had been with him for almost all of it, even after they broke up, but her heart was on Kyoshi Island, and eventually Zuko had told her to follow it.

It’s not like they haven’t visited. Suki had come with Ty Lee and Mai, and half a dozen warriors after the fifth assasination attempt. She departed soon thereafter while Ty Lee and Mai stayed, but not without a hug and a detail of Kyoshi Warriors that Zuko trusts much more than his other guard. Aang and Katara had showed up a couple of times. Toph is with him now, sitting in on council meetings and telling him which of the generals was lying to his face. But Sokka’s been travelling between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, settling agreements and rebuilding tribes. Even though Zuko has a pile of letters next to his bed with Sokka’s messy handwriting scrawled on them, nothing’s much like the feeling of Sokka beaming at him in real life.

“Come on,” Sokka says, slinging an arm across Zuko’s shoulder and nodding towards the palace. “Show me around your place, Jerk Lord.”

──────

 _(ember island, summer_ )

Sokka finds the picture in one of the empty rooms, wandering around the summer house of the man who is the reason he lost his mother. It’s behind the wardrobe, covered in dust and torn in half. There’s a boy who looks like Zuko, face bright and gentle and clear, hair in a ponytail, wearing royal robes. He’s holding a little girl’s hand, but the rest of the picture is gone, split down the middle. There’s an inscription on the back: the first half gone with the other half of the picture, but the rest reading, _and Prince Zuko._

It hurts to look at the picture. Sokka slips it into his pocket and he doesn’t even know why.

He honestly forgets about it – only remembers when he, Aang, and Toph are looking for his sword in the general direction he remembers it being lost in. Toph finds it buried hilt-first in the dirt. He pulls it out and remembers the picture in his pocket, the picture that must surely be lost like he’d thought his sword was lost.

Sokka waits until later to check, because he doesn’t want it to be gone.

It’s miraculously still there. He places a finger over Zuko’s left eye.

He can’t figure out why he keeps it.

──────

 _(fire nation, winter_ )

Sokka stays for a week, with the rest of the ambassadors. He sits on Zuko’s right in meetings and makes fun of every general’s beard and speaks on behalf of the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko ignores all of the meaningful glances his advisors and government officials give him and shows Sokka around the Fire Nation, giving his guards the slip because Toph, Ty Lee, and Mai are more than enough protection.

He doesn’t think he likes living here much of the time, but through Sokka’s laughter he sees the markets and the festivals outside anew. Sokka’s mocking of the stuffy portraits and old decor in the palace make it bearable instead of a reminder of his father rotting away in a prison.

It doesn’t last, of course, because Sokka’s got to leave.

Mai looks at him for a long time after they’re standing on the docks, watching the ships pull away. She sees right through his performance, head held up high even though it feels a bit as though his heart is sailing away along with Sokka.

Zuko doesn’t want to talk about it. There are things he can’t allow himself. There are things he shouldn’t want. There are things he can’t have.

At night when he can’t sleep without Sokka’s snores in the room next to his, mind frantically racing through everything he needs to do and nightmares clawing at the edges of his brain, he thinks about it anyway. He tries to figure it out.

Song’s soft voice and kindness; Jet’s charming, roguish grin and the sound of his sword clashing against Zuko’s; Jin’s bright laughter before she’d given him his first kiss; Mai rolling her eyes, her long black hair brushing his shoulder. He doesn’t know where Sokka fits into any of this, except into all of it.

This, he surely isn’t allowed. This, the law says is wrong. This, is just one more wrong thing in a long list of things that are wrong about him that he doesn’t think are wrong at all.

He changes the law and he can’t change himself. He can’t stop thinking about it either.

Sokka narrowing his eyes before flinging a boomerang; Sokka in the dark with his elbows leaning against the edge of the war balloon, collarbone exposed; Sokka drawing his sword and the metal catching the glint of the sun; Sokka throwing his arms around Zuko. He’s the smartest, brightest person Zuko has ever met.

 _My friend,_ thinks Zuko, over and over, shoving a pillow over his face and letting himself scream into it silently before throwing it aside with a huff. _My friend_. And he isn’t going to ruin that, he isn’t.

──────

( _south pole, summer_ )

The Fire Nation embassy arrives midday, in warm cloaks with hoods over their heads. Sokka strides in with his father and Katara and Aang, back from the Earth Kingdom, to greet them.

He’s looking for Zuko. As soon as he, Katara, and Aang find him with his guards staring suspiciously behind him, they leap on him, Aang with a loud cry of, “Sifu Hotman!” and they ignore everyone else’s flummoxed murmurs.

His dad seems resigned next to him, and Bato is sighing, but Sokka doesn’t care. He knows Katara and Aang don’t either. They saved the world, so in Sokka’s book, they’re allowed to do what they want now. Even if that means scandalizing government officials and ignoring societal customs.

Zuko is smiling sheepishly at them, hair tied up in a top knot and his crown in place. Sokka hasn’t seen him in months, not since the last time he, Katara, and Aang had visited the Fire Lord’s palace in the fall. He nudges Zuko with his elbow when they start walking back to the newly-rebuilt Southern Water Tribe fortress. He watches Zuko laugh in the afternoon light and tries not to stare too obviously, lest Katara catch him.

It’s only that at times like these it’s hard to look at Zuko. At times like these he looks so young, without any wounds of war, so happy, so _surprised_ to be happy. Sincere and honorable still, after everything. Brighter than the sun, that dazzling boy from the photograph, and it hurts to look at him. Sokka wants to tell him not to just _look_ like that. It’s too much. Can’t he see? He can’t show that to everyone.

Sokka’s never figured out a way to say something like that without sounding crazy, though. So he doesn’t say it at all.

After a meeting between the Fire Nation and Water Tribe officials that lasts hours, Sokka and Katara drag Zuko out to the best spots of their village, and Aang takes them penguin sledding. Dinner is full of uncomfortable silence and delicious food and Zuko stifling laughter into his sleeve whenever Sokka makes a joke. They all go to sleep in the same room after, with sleeping bags like they’re fighting a war on the run again, Katara on Sokka’s left and Zuko on his right. Sokka lies awake too conscious of Zuko next to him to sleep.

Suki’s the one who figured it out for him. She’d left for Kyoshi Island, and tied a green ribbon from the Kyoshi Warrior uniform he’d worn once around his wrist. She threw her hands in his hair and kissed him. “Give that to Zuko for me,” she’d said, winking at him. He’d only barely been able to stammer out that he didn’t know what she was talking about before she’d gone on, “I don’t want you to be lonely without me.”

Sokka didn’t want that for her either.

“And he’s pretty easy on the eyes,” Suki had remarked, laughing at the expression on his face. “Oh, come _on_ , Sokka. You think I can’t tell?”

He really hadn’t known what she was talking about then. Yeah, he’d call Zuko a friend. He’d call Zuko family. And if he thought about Zuko helping him break into a prison or breathing fire or saving Katara’s life, maybe he’d call Zuko something else. But that isn’t the way things are.

He’d watched Suki walk away. He thinks sometimes that maybe he’s destined to see them leave: Yue’s hand slipping out of his, Suki kissing him goodbye, the crown and responsibility placed on Zuko’s bowed head. They all have that in common, if nothing else – a sense of duty and honor, people to protect.

He is a child of war. He’s grown up watching people leave.

But he doesn’t _have_ Zuko to lose. So it doesn’t matter.

──────

( _fire nation, fall_ )

They send letters back and forth, Sokka with long rambling tales of his daily routine and Zuko trying his best to respond so that Sokka doesn’t get bored. When Zuko wakes from a nightmare, or stays up all night working on acts and decrees, he unfolds Sokka’s letters and rereads them. Sometimes Sokka sends him pictures that Zuko squints at, trying to decipher. One is that painting of all of them that Zuko remembers him working on in Uncle’s tea shop. It’s hideous and makes no sense. Zuko hangs it up beside his bed and is glad that Toph doesn’t see it, since she’d make fun of him for ages.

It’s after Toph has set out for the Earth Kingdom, looking to open her own metal-bending school, that in quick succession, a letter from Sokka arrives with a great deal of exclamation marks, saying he’s coming for a visit, and Sokka arrives himself.

He comes in when Zuko is sitting on the throne, grinning and sweeping into a mocking bow. Zuko stands up and ignores his advisors’ distraught muttering, clasps Sokka’s hand. He is so relieved he feels faint.

 _I missed you_ , Zuko thinks, _I did I did I did._ He misses them all – it’s lonely work, being a Fire Lord – but he misses Sokka in a different way.

Suki arrives a few days after Sokka does, to the delight of Ty Lee. Zuko is uncertain about the state of Suki and Sokka’s relationship. All he knows is what Suki told him the last time she came to visit, that they loved each other but that she wouldn’t mind if Sokka dated someone else as well – this was added pointedly, and Zuko doesn’t know what she’d meant. The thought of Sokka dating someone other than Suki makes his heart ache, but all that really matters is if Sokka is happy.

He’s stuck in council when she comes, and by the time he hastily comes to greet her, he can’t find Sokka at all, just Suki in her face paint and uniform with her bold eyes and smile.

He remembers waking up for the first time after he’d collapsed and Katara had been frantically trying to heal him. He remembers that his uncle had been sleeping in the chair next to him. When he creeped out of bed, wincing in pain, and opened the door, Suki and Sokka were standing guard. Suki hadn’t been wearing her paint then, and Sokka had been sleeping against her shoulder, hair a mess and mouth turned down at the edges like he was worried. Suki had glanced up to see Zuko and given him a half-smile, looking down at Sokka and giving him a shrug, like _what can you do?_ Her smile was a thing to behold: Zuko had thought, all of a sudden, _of course Sokka loves her_.

He’d thought it at the Boiling Rock, too, when the three of them had been a unit, a team, working together seamlessly. 

Suki gives him a hug in greeting. He’s never been hugged half as much in the past fifteen years of his life than he has in the past year.

Her eyes are sparkling mischievously, and he can’t help but ask, “Where’s Sokka?”

“Oh,” Suki says, grinning, “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

One of the Kyoshi Warriors nudges Suki in the side and hisses something at her. Zuko looks at the warrior, frowning. She looks incredibly familiar – especially her eyes, brighter than the ocean, and the curve of her jaw –

“Do I know you?” Zuko says, which has all of the warriors laughing and clutching at each other’s shoulders, except for the girl he’d been talking to. She’s blushing, clear to see even through the face paint.

It’s hours later, when he’s searching for Sokka, panic-stricken, that Suki tells him Sokka’s the girl in the Kyoshi Warrior uniform. After that, he excuses himself to take a bath and thinks about Sokka’s painted-red mouth.

He considers drowning himself.

──────

( _south pole, winter_ )

After the first time he visits Zuko at the palace, Sokka finds himself in a habit of what his dad calls brooding.

It’s not _brooding_. He stays out at night and looks at the moon.

So maybe it is brooding, a bit. Whatever.

He likes talking to Yue, even though he doesn’t know if she can hear him. It’s not in a sad way, or anything, or. It is a little sad. She’s a good listener. It helps to talk to her, because he can imagine her gentle voice drifting into his ear.

The moon always shines especially bright when he’s outside, looking up. He likes to think she does it for him.

Sokka doesn’t know how to talk to her about this, though, just like he doesn’t know how to say it to his dad or Katara. He doesn’t know how to say it to himself – the feeling in his chest, his heart in his throat. Leave it unspoken and maybe he can figure it out, like that nod of understanding he and Zuko had shared the day of Sozin’s Comet. They always did understand each other. He thinks they both still understand each other now, understand what they’re doing and what they’re not.

“I think I have a crush on the Fire Lord,” he admits to Yue. “Or possibly it’s more than that. Alright, it is more. I know, right? Wild. Can’t really do anything about it, though.”

He imagines Yue’s fond, exasperated laugh. It’s weird to think that when she met Zuko, he was their enemy, a glowering figure with an unfortunate hairstyle and a tendency to bounce back from whatever happened to him. _You’re like a boomerang,_ Sokka had said to him once, in the Western Air Temple when he was teasing Zuko day and night to watch him explode, his face turning pink. _You always come back._

If things were different he thinks Zuko and Yue might have understood each other. 

“Oh, alright,” Sokka relents. “I could do something. I’m not the type to wait around. I don’t want to ruin anything, Yue. I don’t want to mess things up.”

He stays out and looks at Yue’s glimmering light, her reflection against the waves of the ocean. “Alright,” he says, softly. “Good night.”

──────

( _fire nation, fall_ )

Sokka drags him out to the training grounds to spar despite all of Zuko’s half-hearted protests, hand gripped around the sleeve of Zuko’s robe.

“You always cheat,” Zuko complains, hair falling into his eyes and leaves from the trees scattering to the ground amidst the wind. Autumn was always his mother’s favorite season. _Change, Zuko,_ she said, smoothing down his hair from his forehead. _It’s the opportunity to grow, discover new things._

“I won’t this time!” Sokka says, sounding wounded. “I gave my boomerang to Suki, I swear!”

It’s not like Zuko can say no to him, or anything, so he lets Sokka lead him out to an empty space away from the palace. He takes out his _dao_ and quirks his eyebrow at Sokka, who grins and unsheathes his sword. They circle each other, Sokka moving forward almost lazily and Zuko countering, their swords clanging against each other. This way and that, a thrust and a parry, a laugh from Sokka and a flash of a smirk from Zuko.

A strand of Sokka’s hair falls down, by his mouth, and sweat is glimmering against his collarbone. It’s incredibly distracting, and Zuko’s spent the past year in meetings, while Sokka has clearly been training every day.

He’s not too upset about it when Sokka disarms him, and presses forward, shoving him down against the grass, and straddles him with the tip of his sword against Zuko’s throat.

Zuko tilts his head back, breathless. He swallows. “You’ve been practicing.”

“I didn’t even need to cheat,” Sokka says, but he doesn’t smile, doesn’t play it off as a joke. His gaze is hungry.

Zuko thinks that maybe he's going to lean down and – instead, he drops his sword away and rolls off Zuko, letting out a long sigh and putting a hand over his face.

Zuko tries not to feel disappointed. He looks up at the brilliant blue of the sky, red and gold leaves falling next to the both of them.

Sokka’s other hand finds his.

Zuko freezes.

He’s not allowed to have this. He’s not. But Sokka’s long and nimble fingers, tangling with his, his thumb stroking Zuko’s palm, say otherwise.

Zuko lets out a shuddering breath and feels Sokka breathe out with him. He doesn’t dare move. They stay like that for a few moments, before Sokka pulls them both up and they walk back to the palace still holding hands, swinging them back and forth, with their swords sheathed. There are blades of grass over their clothes and golden leaves in Sokka’s hair. Zuko picks one out and pulls off Sokka’s hair tie, his breath catching as soon as Sokka’s hair falls down. Sokka lets him do it and makes fun of him.

Entirely inappropriate conduct for a Fire Lord and his ambassador. Zuko doesn’t really care.

That night, Sokka crawls into Zuko’s bed, too big for any one person. Zuko rests his head against Sokka’s chest and Sokka plays with his hair and they don’t say anything.

He sleeps the whole morning away.

──────

( _the western air temple, summer_ )

Having Suki and his dad with him makes Sokka feel like he can do anything, like he’s made up for the invasion failing. And he couldn’t have done it without the crown prince of the Fire Nation. Or maybe that’s former crown prince, now. Sokka doesn’t really know.

“Hey,” he tells Zuko in the morning, Suki’s lipstick smeared beneath his shirt, “thanks.”

He doesn’t know how to say it all. _It helps that you’re here now. You saved them and you saved me, so thank you._

Zuko looks baffled, like he always does whenever one of them says something nice to him. “For what?”

“Uh, for breaking into the most secure prison in the world with me?” Sokka says. “And, you know. For that stuff you said.”

“Oh,” Zuko says. “You’re welcome.”

He sounds uncertain and nervous, playing with the edges of his shirt. Sokka tries not to be endeared. He touches Zuko’s shoulder briefly before going over to Katara, Aang, and Toph.

Prince Zuko is kind of weird, and pretty awkward, and really dramatic, and incredibly earnest when he speaks, with a tendency for long, theatrical, and inspiring speeches. Sokka didn’t expect to like him this much.

──────

( _fire nation, spring_ )

Katara and Aang’s visit coincides with Uncle’s, which means that between them and Toph, the palace is full of laughter the way it never has been before Zuko’s coronation.

Despite Sokka’s absence he likes having all of them here. He knows they’ve won, that this is what they wanted, but sometimes he misses the simplicity of drinking tea by a campfire and making sand sculptures, Katara racing Aang in the water with Suki as their judge and Sokka arguing with Toph over whose sandcastle is better.

He feels better with them here. When he wakes up early like he always does, sometimes Aang is there and they sit side by side, watching the sunrise and meditating like they did before Sozin’s Comet. Uncle makes him tea and knows how to twist around the words of all his councillors so that they’re agreeing with Zuko before they know it. Katara and Toph wander around markets with him.

He goes to see Azula in the too-clean and too-white mental hospital. He’s alone, like he generally is. Bringing Ty Lee and Mai isn’t generally a good idea. Mai gets tense and upset whenever she comes here, and there is a twist to her mouth like she thinks Azula deserves this, and wishes she didn’t think it. Mai’s betrayal, and Ty Lee’s, hit Azula harder than anything else. Zuko thinks if Azula loved anyone, she loved Ty Lee, and Azula’s never been taught how to love except through fear.

She doesn’t like seeing both of them, usually.

She’s stopped screaming at him after the first few visits. He thinks she’s saving her breath. Sometimes she looks behind him, like she’s seeing something he’s not and she hisses out, “Stop _looking_ at me!” She is a ghost of herself, that young and proud and powerful girl.

He doesn’t want to hold out hope. But the past year has taught him more about hope than he’s known in his life.

He thinks she’s getting better.

It’s still hard to see her, though, and when he steps out of the room, his breathing is shaky, at least until he sees Katara, tall and confident with her hair tumbling down the sleeves of her blue dress.

“I didn’t want you to be alone,” Katara says before he can say anything, and Zuko’s eyes start pricking, and so do Katara’s. She throws her arms around him, one hand touching the scar on his stomach from Azula, and says, “You don’t have to do everything alone.”

“I know,” Zuko says, and he does. Because of them.

When they get back, there’s a letter from Sokka waiting for him, complaining about all of them getting together without him.

The last line reads: _Love, Sokka, if you haven’t forgotten who I AM SEEING AS YOU ALL ARE HERE WITHOUT ME_. Zuko traces the loops of his writing, the first two words of the last line, and ignores Katara’s raised eyebrows.

──────

( _fire nation, fall_ )

Sokka finds Zuko feeding turtle-ducks by the pond with a slight smile, sunlight shining on his black hair and making his eyes glitter, bright gold.

When he woke up in the morning Zuko was already gone, the sheets still warm in the place where he’d been and Sokka’s hand outstretched, reaching for him in sleep.

Sokka’s heart hurts. He settles down cross-legged on the grass beside Zuko. For a few moments, they only sit there, knees touching and birdsong in the background, tense and quiet.

“Suki says she’s staying for a while,” Sokka says at last. “With the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors.”

“She told me,” Zuko says, tossing his last chunk of bread in the water and watching a baby turtle-duck swim frantically over to eat it.

“And I’m,” Sokka says all in a rush, “I’m going to stay for longer. And come more often. In an official capacity. As ambassador. If that’s what you want. I mean.” He winces, biting his lip. This may be worse than when he first tried asking Yue out. Not that he’s asking Zuko out, or anything.

Zuko is smiling down at the water now, that silly smile he tries to hide, usually. “That’s what I want, Sokka. If that’s what you want.”

“Uh, that is what I want,” Sokka says, and resists the urge to groan out loud. “I just – I wanted to say – that I love Suki.” This probably is not a good start. “I mean. I love Suki, but I think I probably might also – love someone else.”

“Someone else,” Zuko echoes, voice unreadable.

“Yeah,” Sokka says, and lets out a long breath. “Yeah. You, actually. I think I’m falling in love with you, man. If that’s okay – ”

He doesn’t finish, because Zuko has grabbed him by his shirt and kissed him.

Sokka makes a muffled noise and kisses him back. He moves closer, falling halfway into Zuko’s lap and both of them tumbling down to the grass, a hand in Zuko’s hair and their noses bumping against each other, Zuko’s mouth smiling against his.

“So it’s okay,” Sokka says with his forehead pressed against Zuko’s, breathless.

Zuko laughs into the crook of his neck. “You are _such_ an idiot.”

“Hey, you asshole,” Sokka complains, smiling.

“Yes,” says Zuko. “It’s okay.”

“You’re not even going to say it back?” Sokka protests.

“Do you need me to?” Zuko says, still laughing. “I think I’m falling in love with you too, then.”

“Okay,” Sokka says, brushing a hand over Zuko’s jaw. “That’s good, then.”

And he kisses Zuko again like he’s wanted to for the past year, beside the pond with scattered red and gold and yellow leaves falling over them, like flower petals.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u sm for reading! comments and kudos are really lovely and i'm on tumblr @bisexualhaz if you want to talk :)


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